My ex-career as a muslimah

“When night falls, keep your children indoors, for the devils are out and about at this time. When an hour of the night goes by, you can let them go.” [Sahîh al-Bukhârî: (3280, 5623) and Sahîh Muslim (2012)]

“Do not send out your cattle or your children when the sun sets until the blackness of the night descends, for indeed the Satans are sent forth when the Sun sets until the blackness of the night descends.”

This benefit crossed my mind the other night when I told one of my children to go outside and sweep the sidewalk. It was evening time and the sun was setting so according to Islam it would be approaching the Magrhib prayer time. She hesitated and I asked her why and she replied she didn’t like going out at night. Granted it wasn’t fully dark but she did ask one of her siblings to go outside while she completed the task. (more…)

I was in the store and saw some dice for sale while I was shopping for something else. It made me think of the Islamic ruling against playing games with dice and against playing chess so I decided to add it here. I briefly tried to locate the official ruling but as with all stupid Islamic laws it wasn’t easy to find.

It is known that chess is forbidden in Islam. Yes, people will pop up and say that they know so-and-so Muslim who plays chess. As one Muslim speaker once said, “You can’t judge Islam by the Muslim.” Just because someone sees a Muslim doing something doesn’t mean that it is permissible in Islam.

Those precious dice became a no-no in our house and we had to say goodbye to board games. I think I wanted to get a game of Monopoly or something for the kids and the ex flipped out(as usual) and said that it was haraam. I imagine some of the newer “sheikhs” have come out with squeaky clean interpretations of hadith and new fatwa that allow certain types of dice that can be used. The nature of Islam is pure deception for that is how it spreads. It wouldn’t be much for scholars to re-interpret the words of Muhammad for the sake of making Islam palatable to the kafireen(disbelievers) until they have been subdued.

So, at any rate, I am free to use dice for board games with the family or gambling if I want. I wouldn’t be surprised if Muhammad was doing a little gambling of his own and got beat out of his money. So then he got mad and all of sudden, presto, Allah sends down an all too convenient inspiration to Muhammad to ban the use of dice.

I was searching through my drawer for something and I came across an old Muslim outfit that I forgot about. Several years ago I went to the YMCA and signed up for membership for my kids and me when I was a Muslim. After getting accepted, we went to the Y several times a week and I used pretty much everything in the facility even though I wore a jilbab and hijab. I had ditched the niqab by this time because it became too much of a nuisance especially since I was newly single. Eventually I went and bought a x-large mens long sleeved shirt and baggy pants so I could have better workout wear without breaking the religious commandments of covering my awrah. This allowed my to spend plenty of time on the weight machines, free weight area, stationary cardio machines, indoor track, and the video game room. I was able to use everything EXCEPT the pool. This Y had a huge heated indoor lap pool, a jacuzzi, and a sauna. Every time we went I would feel the cool breeze of chlorinated water and long to feel the water on my skin once again. There was no way to escape it either because the building was designed to pass by the pool at every angle. Even in the dressing room the cool water beckoned with every beach towel flung over a changing stall. Working out on the weights didn’t do much to quell my desire to jump in either. All of the sweating from deadlifts, shoulder presses, and seated rows with all of the clothes I had on just intensified my desire jump in just once. After awhile I started to feel like crack fiend that wanted just one hit. It was like thinking “the pool, it be callin me man, it be callin me”. (more…)

I don’t know what I was thinking about the other day but it made the infamous mermaid fatwa cross my mind. The mermaid fatwa was an edict that was issued by some “scholar’ and posted on islamqanda many years ago but has since been removed. In a nutshell, it states that mermaids are halal to eat (with one dissenting opinion) and uses several hadith to back up the verdict. An old copy can be found here:

I was in a nostalgic mood this morning so I put on some Christmas music and warmed some cinnamon on the stove. I haven’t celebrated Christmas or any other traditional American holiday for more than 14 years. Most Muslims know that celebrating any holiday outside of Eid is forbidden although many do it anyway. When I apostated I had to decide what I would do about the holiday issue.

After some research I decided that I would celebrate Christmas and other holidays if I wanted and that there was no real harm. I came to this decision because the history of Christmas started out as a pagan ritual and had nothing to do with Christ until Christians co-opted the holiday and made it about Christ’s mass. Contrary to popular belief, Jesus was not originally “the reason for the season”. Christmas started out as celebration of the winter harvest and change of seasons which was a time of decorating trees, gift giving, community, wreath hanging, and food. There may also be some superstition about the wreath preventing demons from coming into one’s house(soot/coal in the stocking), I don’t remember. (more…)

BOOM! I can eat any kind of rice krispie treats with marshmallows and not spend my time hunting down halal/kosher versions.

Come June 1, 2011 I will be celebrating one year of celibacy. Perhaps many people don’t think that is something worth celebrating. After two Islamic marriages, one for 10+ years and one for barely a year, a year of celibacy is a welcome relief from the relationship cycle of Muslims. I decided to take a break after the end of the last one even though I was still Muslim. Deliberately taking a hiatus from marriage as a Muslim is relatively unheard of and definitely frowned on. Marriage is considered to be half a person’s deen and to not be married is considered to not be whole. However just the task of finding a spouse is draining enough without the added strain of building and maintaining a long-term relationship.

Looking for a suitable mate can branch out several different ways. Typically young Muslims from Arab, Pakistani, and Indian families have alot of help when searching for a spouse and they are matched up by their parents. Many of them will spend a few months to a year in an undercover marriage that allows them to get to know one another. It’s often termed an engagement although the community usually doesn’t know about it until the two parties officially decide they want to be married. If they feel they are incompatible then they quietly go their separate ways with the family’s honor and the girl’s virginity intact.

Then there are the rest of the Muslims left to fend for themselves in the murky waters of Islamic marriage. A good chunk of converts already knew their spouses before they married because they were dating before accepting Islam. While dating for Muslims in general, and a woman in particuliar, is a no-no, it happens. Alot. I have been stopped a number of times because someone has a question about Islam and they start off with “my boyfriend is Muslim and…”. Needless to say these converts will often start to face pressure from the Muslim family to get married and thus their journey into marriage isn’t as complicted either. What happens afterwards is a different ball of wax. The remaining few must subject themselves to referrals from friends, community newsletter wife/husband wanted ads, matrimonial sites, Facebook, specially-organized matrimony conventions, and the last I heard, speed-marriages(Islamic version of speed-dating).